In the U.S. midterm elections, the Democrats won a landslide victory, and newly elected governors in multiple states immediately imposed tough conditions on data centers, announcing a full suspension of new construction permits until new regulations are introduced. This policy shift directly detonated the market, with tech stocks such as Nvidia, Tesla, AMD, and Micron suffering the largest single-day market value wipeout in history after the election, involving an amount close to $4 trillion.
Chamath Palihapitiya, co-host of the well-known blog All-In Podcast and Silicon Valley investor, disclosed on the program aired on November 8 that the real "nuclear-grade" variable is hidden in the computing power supply contract between SpaceX and Anthropic—both parties hold a "90-day mutual exit clause." Once market computing power supply suddenly tightens due to the freezing of permits in various states, SpaceX could theoretically terminate the contract and reprice at 2 to 3 times the spot price, at which point the power landscape of the entire AI industry would be completely rewritten.
(Screenshot from All-In Podcast)
Hyperscale cloud providers, sitting on existing computing power, firmly occupy the position of "landlords," while Neoclouds and frontier model companies that rely heavily on external leasing face a life-or-death situation.
At the same time, All-In Podcast co-hosts Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg also warned on the program that if states continue to set approval barriers, gigawatt-scale data center projects worth more than $50 billion will be forced to relocate to Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, and even the Middle East, and the United States will be reduced from a "global computing power exporter" to an expensive "Token importer," with a strategic impact on technological competitiveness and employment that cannot be ignored.
Permit Freeze: A Strong Grassroots Backlash Against the "AI Oligarchs"
After the election results were announced, newly elected Texas Governor Gina Ino Hosa immediately stated publicly that before special legislation is introduced, all new data center permits will be suspended. According to discussion by the All-In Podcast co-hosts on the program, candidates in multiple newly elected states hold similar positions.
This public opinion base did not come out of nowhere. On the program, Chamath cited a video widely circulated on the X platform—the SpaceX team went to Cochise County, Arizona, to hold an information session for its 6GW data center project, and two SpaceX employees, Riley and Katie, promised on the spot that the project would lower local electricity bills, consume no water resources, reduce property taxes by 20%, and provide repayment funds for county bonds. However, the reaction of the residents in the audience was continuous noise and confrontation.
Chamath pointed out that this sentiment does not stem from rational judgment of facts, but is a totemic projection of the "economic divide." What community residents extremely resent is that tech giants enjoy generous high tax breaks provided by local governments while driving up local electricity prices and water consumption. David Sacks also said bluntly that the core logic of residents is: "The AI oligarchs get rich with tax incentives, while we pay higher electricity bills for them."
David Sacks further pointed out that the political momentum for the permit freeze is almost rigid: "In the last election, both Democrats and Republicans treated politicians who approved data centers as targets of attack. Anyone with political ambitions has no reason to stamp approval on any project in the next four years." His baseline judgment is that projects already under construction with all permits are highly likely to be completed by 2027, but new projects not yet approved will face great uncertainty, and by 2028, the entire project pipeline may have basically closed or shrunk significantly.
"Landlords" and "Tenants": The Life-and-Death Divergence of the Computing Power Landscape
Chamath clearly divides participants in the current computing power market into two completely different camps, and says bluntly that the two sides have vastly different fates under the new situation.
Hyperscalers—including Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and SpaceX—build their own power plants and sit on large amounts of existing computing power, making them true "landlords." The tightening of permits for new data centers has limited impact on them, but instead brings important strategic opportunities: by shifting incremental computing power to their own products, they can effectively suppress the growth speed of external competitors. As Chamath said, Google's recent acquisition of the Crusoe data center is a direct manifestation of this logic—"They drove out the tenants and took the entire asset into their own hands."
In contrast, emerging cloud service providers (Neoclouds) and frontier model companies (such as Anthropic and OpenAI) rely heavily on externally leased computing power and are truly a "tenant class." Once new supply is locked down by state regulations, spot GPU prices will soar sharply, and these companies will either be forced to accept much higher quotes or gradually fall behind in the fierce model iteration competition due to insufficient computing power.
It is worth noting that Anthropic and OpenAI are currently in a high-speed model iteration rhythm of 60 to 90 days per cycle. Once computing power supply tightens, this rhythm will be forcibly slowed down, leaving a time window for models under hyperscale providers such as Google Gemini to catch up.
SpaceX's "90-Day Nuclear Button": One Contract Determines the AI World
Among all variables, Chamath believes the most decisive one is a contract clause little known to the outside world.
According to Chamath's disclosure, the computing power supply agreement between SpaceX and Anthropic contains a "mutual 90-day exit clause"—both parties may terminate the contract with 90 days' notice to the other party. This clause may appear to be a standard commercial arrangement in stable market times, but against the backdrop of a sudden tightening of computing power supply, it has evolved into a "nuclear bomb" that can be detonated at any time.
Chamath's reasoning logic is as follows:
If the permit freeze in various states leads to a significant reduction in available computing power in the market, spot computing power prices will rise sharply. SpaceX will then have sufficient economic incentive to terminate the existing contract and reprice at the spot market price—most likely 2 to 3 times the original contract price. Anthropic will have no choice but to swallow this price or face a life-or-death crisis of computing power supply cutoff.
The chain reaction of this move goes far beyond that. Chamath pointed out that it will force all hyperscale cloud providers to re-examine their own computing power allocation strategies—should they continue leasing to external customers at current prices, or reserve everything for their own models? At the same time, it will force Neoclouds to use all their financing reserves to snap up all available computing power at high prices, lest they be completely squeezed out of the market.
"I think all game theory is condensed into this one transaction. If Elon decides to tear up this contract, the consequence will be a complete reshuffle of the entire AI industry landscape." Chamath summarized thus.
Computing Power Going Overseas: The United States Faces the Strategic Risk of Turning from an "Exporter" into an "Importer"
On the program, both Jason Calacanis and David Sacks warned about the prospect of data centers relocating overseas.
The core logic is: data centers do not have to be located within the United States. Ultra-large data centers on the scale of $50 billion and gigawatt level can fully be located in Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, and Singapore, and even in the Middle East after the war ends. Google has already deployed a large data center in Malaysia. With existing submarine cables, CDN technology, and the Starlink network, the latency and efficiency of cross-border computing power delivery are no longer major obstacles.
David Sacks clearly pointed out that if the United States does not build these data centers, the United States will pay a high price for importing "Tokens." Jason Calacanis added a more direct domestic cost: hundreds of thousands of data center construction jobs with annual salaries of $300,000 to $400,000 will be lost, and tax revenue originally belonging to U.S. local governments will flow to places such as Malaysia.
"These governors will learn a very heavy lesson in globalization." Jason Calacanis said.
David Friedberg raised a more radical policy risk—some far-left politicians are already discussing not only restricting data center construction, but also restricting the development, deployment, and even use of AI models themselves. He believes that the deeper logic behind this is a fundamental contest between state power and control over AI technology: whoever masters the strongest AI capabilities masters an absolute advantage over citizens and the market.
